Late Monday night, my fiancée and I took our dogs out in our gated front yard in the Cedars neighborhood south of downtown Dallas. My fiancée noticed a man threatening another man with a large stick down the street.

I called Dallas 911 and reported what we’d seen. I told the dispatcher that the men were walking north on our street, toward downtown. I gave as good a description as I could of the two men, and I was told police were on the way.

The men continued to bicker, now in front of our home. Five minutes passed.

As we watched from inside, the man with the stick started beating the other man, including on his head. He knocked the victim into the street. A car drove past without stopping.

I called 911 again as soon as the assault began. This time, I was admittedly more animated and insisted that police and an ambulance get to the scene immediately.

Officers got there within a few minutes of my second call, but the attacker ran away with some of the victim’s belongings, which made the crime an aggravated robbery. The responding officers searched but weren’t able to find him. I came outside to speak to officers and the victim.

The victim, who said he was homeless and that his name was Ira Wrigley, 47, was bleeding from his mouth. That didn’t stop him from asking me repeatedly for money. Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics treated him on the scene and quickly left. Minutes later, he told a Dallas police officer he wanted to be taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Paramedics returned and, despite the man’s pleas, refused to take Wrigley to the hospital. The injuries to his face and head didn’t warrant transportation by ambulance, they told him. He could go to Parkland on his own.

Luckily for Wrigley, one of the Dallas officers agreed to take him to the hospital. He got in the back of the police cruiser with a bag of snacks and water that my fiancée packed for him.

Police arrested a 51-year-old man in the fatal shooting of a woman found dead near Interstate 45 and Simpson Stuart Road in southern Dallas earlier this month, according to police records.

Floyd Murray faces a murder charge in the slaying of Tunesia Lyons, 39. He is being held at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, where his bail is set at $250,000, according to jail records.

According to public records, Murray was previously convicted of murder in a 1987 Dallas County case. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in that case.

Investigators initially had trouble identifying Lyons and released an artist rendering of her face and a photo of a tattoo on her left calf. Her family saw the sketch and photos and contacted police.

The family also told investigators that Lyons had been associating with a man known as “Black,” who had threatened her before and was known to carry a gun, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Police ultimately located a woman who was with “Black” and Lyons the night before Lyons was found dead. They were at the Paris Adult Book Store on Harry Hines Boulevard near Royal Lane, she told police. Later, at about 3 a.m. on August 5, she saw Lyons and “Black” drive off together, police said. Lyons was found dead about 7:40 a.m.

The woman identified Murray as the man she knows as “Black” in a six-photo lineup, the affidavit said. Police put out a bulletin that said Murray was a “person of interest” in the murder and included his license plate.

Yesterday morning, about 1, officers stopped Murray. He was taken to Jack Evans Police Headquarters, where he told detectives he was with Lyons just before she was found dead, “however he denied any involvement” in her murder, the affidavit said.

Investigators obtained a warrant and searched his vehicle. They performed a process known as “blue star,” which can reveal blood traces in a given area.

An 18-year-old man was declared brain dead this week after Mesquite police say he was seen acting erratically, including banging his head against the doors of a middle school on Tuesday night.

Graham Dyer remained at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, where he was reportedly on life support on Friday so that his organs could be harvested.

Police said the preliminary investigation does not indicate wrongdoing by the officers. People who were with Dyer that night told police they earlier took LSD, said Mesquite police Lt. Bill Hedgpeth.

“It doesn’t look like our officers violated any policies or did anything that would exacerbate those injuries or cause his death,” Hedgpeth said.

Someone called 911 shortly before 11 on Tuesday to report three men outside Wilkinson Middle School in the 2100 block of Crest Park Drive. The caller said that one of the men, who police believe to be Dyer, was “acting very erratic by rolling around on the ground, screaming, and banging his head,” Mesquite police said in a written statement.

“The witness also said that at one point the male ran head first into one of the closed doors to the school,” the statement said.

When officers arrived, only Dyer was still at the scene.

“He was lying on the ground when they got there,” Hedgpeth said. “He had scrapes on his body, contusions on his head. He appeared to be high or intoxicated.”

Hedgpeth said that Dyer became violent towards the officers as they approached.

A struggle ensued and Dyer bit one of the officers, Jack Fyall, on the hand, Hedgpeth said. At least some of the fight is believed to have been recorded on a police squad car camera, police said.

The other officers at the scene were identified as Sgt. Richard Houston and officers Alan Gafford, Zackary Scott and William Heidelberg.

Once inside the police squad car, Dyer continued to bang his head on a safety screen. Paramedics were called to the scene to check on Dyer and they gave the OK to send him on to the Mesquite jail, police said.

Police said Dyer was combative on the way to the jail and, once there, he was put in a restraint chair and checked every 15 minutes.

Dyer was to be charged with public intoxication/substance, resisting arrest and assault on a public servant, police said.

“About 1:30 a.m., the jail sergeant noticed that Mr. Dyer seemed to be in some sort of distress and summoned paramedics to the jail,” the written statement said. “He was subsequently transported to Baylor Hospital.”

Investigators later located the other men who were with Dyer. They told police each of them had taken four hits of LSD at a home just before they went to the school, police said.

A woman faces an animal cruelty charge after her malnourished dog was found dead in her sweltering northwest Dallas apartment garage on Tuesday evening, according to police records.

Brianna Burkowski, 20, whose listed employer is The Men’s Club, is being held at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, where her bail is set at $1,500. The state jail felony charge carries a maximum punishment of two years in a state jail.

Dallas police officers arrived at the complex in the 10100 block of West Technology Boulevard about 5:30 p.m. They were there in response to a report of a foul odor and what appeared to be dried blood coming from Burkowski’s garage, the records said.

A leasing agent for the apartment complex told officers that “Burkowski is known to leave her dog, a mature saint bernard, in the … garage during all hours of the day and night, even when the outside air temperature is approximately 100 degrees,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The leasing agent told the officers she feared the dog was dead inside the garage, police said.

The officers tracked down Burkowski at her apartment and she told them that her dog had died on Monday and “she had wrapped the dog up in a blanket,” the affidavit said.

Asked why she had not disposed of her pet’s body, Burkowski said “that he was too heavy for her to move,” the affidavit said.

The officers contacted Animal Control and asked Burkowski to open the garage, which she did. Inside, the officers found the dog so malnourished that its ribs were protruding, police said.

There was inadequate food or water for the dog and it was not properly sheltered from the heat in Burkowski’s “extremely hot garage,” police said.

A woman accused of severely abusing her disabled teenage daughter said in a tearful jail interview on Tuesday that she has no regrets about using homeopathic and naturopathic treatments she read about on the internet, including stopping her seizure medication.

“I do regret that she’s in the state that she’s in now,” Schandrilla Schlesinger, 37 said during the interview at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. “I’ve had people tell me over and over that I’m basically responsible for this … it hurts so bad because I know I’ve done everything that I knew to do and it seemed to be working.”

The 15-year-old girl, who suffers from cerebral palsy and a severe seizure disorder, was hospitalized late last month and put on life support, according to police. At the time, her ribs were visible, her cheeks were sunken and she weighed 49 pounds, down from 80 pounds in February, police said.

Schlesinger of Red Bird was arrested on Saturday and faces a first-degree felony charge of injury to a disabled individual causing serious bodily injury. Her bail was set at $150,000 and she remained at the jail on Tuesday evening.

Child Protective Services received five prior reports involving Schlesinger, including one in May. Most of them were connected to seizure-related falls and all of them were “ruled out,” an agency spokeswoman said.

“It becomes part of the bigger picture,” said agency spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales. “Any time that we’ve got information on the family previously we’re going to make sure that we take all of that into account.”

CPS took custody of three younger children, two boys and a girl, and placed them with Schlesinger’s relatives.

Schlesinger said in the jail interview that she has previously taken her daughter off of her seizure medication for years at a time and that she did great.

“I have never really been a fan of medication, ever,” she said. “When I’m in pain and I go through things, I very, very rarely take anything.”

In this case, she said she took her daughter off her medications several weeks ago and that she saw a major decrease in her seizure activity.

“I just decided to, more or less, wean her off of the seizure medications as I did once before,” the single mother said. “In my heart, I felt if it worked once before it’ll work again.

But police wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit that the teen has a new brain injury “due to persistent uncontrolled seizure activity at home and prolonged unresponsiveness at home.”

The diet Schlesinger put her daughter on included fruits, grains, oats and vegetables, she said.

“We have embraced living a holistic lifestyle and it worked out great,” she said.
Schlesinger said she noticed changes in her daughter, including weight loss, but she said she did not think that was a serious problem.

“She was basically going through a detox,” Schlesinger said.

“The only regret that I do have is doing it on my own,” she said. “But as far as the method, no.”

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who has gained national attention for his campaign against domestic violence, said this afternoon that he is “devastated” by a domestic violence shooting spree in which four women were killed on Wednesday night.

“It’s a very sad day for anybody that cares about women and women’s rights and children in this city,” Rawlings said in a phone interview.

Erbie Lee Bowser, 44, faces multiple capital murder charges after authorities say he killed his former girlfriend and her teenage daughter in southwest Dallas around 10:30 p.m. and then drove about 7 miles to DeSoto to kill his estranged wife and her daughter. He is accused of tossing a grenade into the DeSoto home before that shooting. Four people were wounded in the shootings.

The mayor vowed to push on in his fight against men who abuse women, nearly five months after he drew thousands to City Hall for a rally against domestic violence. He said he met just yesterday with District Attorney Craig Watkins on the issue and he plans to hold a private meeting by the end of this month with Police Chief David Brown, Watkins and county judges who handle protective orders.

“The real question is, ‘what can we do better as a system?’”

The mayor said he wants to produce a “cross-jurisdictional strategic plan for the city and the county.”

Specifically, Rawlings said domestic violence cases must move faster through the court system.

“Because we don’t have the resources to move these cases along quickly, sometimes they’re a year long before someone is really brought to court,” Rawlings said. “In that interim, the victim pulls away and things change so most of these things start to get dropped out.”

The mayor, a Dallas Mavericks fan, said he recalls seeing Bowser at games when he performed with the zany Dallas Mavericks ManiAACs dance troupe.

Bowser entered the Veterans Court after attacking his wife at her DeSoto home in January 2011. She had filed for divorce and wanted him to move out, according to a protective order application she signed.

As he has in the past, Rawlings referred to men who abuse women as “terrorists.”

“These are terrorists, these are people that are creating terror in our backyard,” Rawlings said. “And if we looked at them in that way we would move heaven and earth to stop this.”

“This is the result of a culture of accepting domestic violence in our city,” he said. “We all do it. And we know people that have hit somebody and we don’t stand up and create a taboo about this the way it needs to be, whether it’s in the media or whether it’s in our personal lives.”

Dallas police homicide detectives interviewed Dasmine Mitchell, 17, about 4 p.m. yesterday. Dasmine, who was reportedly in critical condition, “was asked if she knew who shot her and she stated it was ‘Erbie,’” an arrest warrant affidavit said.

Dasmine is a friend of the family of Bowser’s ex-girlfriend, Toya Smith, 43, and her daughter, Tasmia Allen, 17, both of whom were killed in the shooting at their southwest Dallas home around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. Also wounded in that shooting was Smith’s 14-year-old son, Storm Malone.

Dasmine “identified suspect Erbie Bowser from a six-photo lineup as the person who shot her,” the affidavit said. She “identified the suspect as the only shooter.”

Bowser has not yet been brought to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. He is believed to be at Parkland Memorial Hospital at this hour.

Dallas police have accused Bowser of capital murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the documents said. The total recommended bail on those charges is $2.5 million.

Bowser is expected to face multiple additional charges in the DeSoto shootings.

The affidavit also says that during a search of the Dallas home, “detectives found 7.62 x 25 caliber cartridge casings inside the residence that were identical, indicating they were fired from the same caliber weapon. Clothing, shoes, and jewelry belonging to the suspect were also found inside … Smith’s bedroom.”

After the Dallas shooting, police believe Bowser then went to the home of his 47-year-old estranged wife in the 100 block of Galleria Drive in DeSoto, busted down the back door, and tossed in a hand grenade, authorities said. The explosion blew out walls and windows, but no one was hurt by the blast, police said.

Police said Bowser then entered the home and shot to death Zina Bowser and her daughter, Neima Williams, 28.

Zina Bowser’s two young boys were also wounded by gunfire before the gunman apparently ran out of bullets. Her 13-year-old son was able to call police.

Constance McKinney, who is the cousin and neighbor of Zina Bowser’s mother, said that the children, 10-year-old Myles and 13-year-old Chris, underwent surgery.

When police arrived at the DeSoto home, Erbie Bowser pretended to be a victim. But police identified him as their suspect and arrested him.

Justin P. MacDonald, 29, who was in jail on a probation violation, was quickly re-arrested after a sheriff’s deputy spotted him walking around wearing inmate pants and no shirt, the documents said. The deputy approached the Lew Sterrett Justice Center and “noticed the suspicious person hiding near the exit to the Crowley Courthouse.”

The deputy arrested MacDonald, who said he was an inmate in the South Tower of the jail. He told the deputy, “he was taking trash out and just walked out of the front doors of the jail because he wanted fresh air.”

MacDonald was escorted back inside and now faces a felony escape charge, the documents said.

Sheriff’s Department officials ordered the lockdown while they checked to make sure all inmates were where they were supposed to be.

“An inmate count and verification was completed immediately after the incident,” said Raul Reyna, a department spokesman. “The investigation is on-going to determine how the inmate made it to the outside of the facility.”

When reached on Friday night, Sheriff Lupe Valdez initially said she was unaware of the lockdown before speculating that it was likely connected to the escape.